


crushed from the inside out

by vividder



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Flipper is also upset, Follows 1x06, Gen, Grief/Mourning, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 08:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11055096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vividder/pseuds/vividder
Summary: Elliot goes home after finding Shayla's body.





	crushed from the inside out

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the episode br4ve-trave1er and beyond!

Elliot didn’t remember running back to his apartment, but he must have.  He found himself standing in the middle of the living area, breathing heavily. The sweat made his clothes stick to his skin and his face damp.  

He couldn’t get the image of her body in that trunk out of her mind.  It was painted on the back of his eyelids, a shadow that lingered over everything he saw.

There had been so much blood.  Elliot hadn’t expected so much blood.  He’d expected her to be alive, to be awake, to come back here with him and thank him for saving her.  Or chastise him for not listening.  

She’d warned him, after all.

But he should have known, should have figured.  Elliot was the reason she'd even met Vera in the first place.    After all, if Elliot hadn’t wanted the suboxone to avoid getting addicted to the morphine, Shayla would never have started going to him for supplies.  She wouldn’t have been raped or kidnapped or...or killed.

The first thing she'd told him about Vera was that he might have suboxone.  The second thing she'd said was that he was unstable.

He should have known what he'd been asking of her.

Elliot turned those words over in his mind.   _ Shayla’s dead _ .  They sounded unnatural, even though he’d been pondering them all day.  Well, he’d been pondering the  _ possibility  _ of them all day.  He didn’t expect them to ever become factual truth. He’d done everything in his power to prevent them from becoming factual truth.

A sudden anger ignited within him.  He could kill Vera right now.  

Elliot stepped forward and punched the wall.  Not hard enough to damage it, but hard enough to make his knuckles smart and send a shockwave up to his shoulder.  

Flipper jumped up from where she’d been sleeping and barked at her owner.  Elliot paid no attention to her.  Punching the wall had felt good.  He was angry at Vera.  He was furious at himself.  He needed to break something, and he thought he deserved the pain.

Elliot shook out his hand and hit the wall again.  Flipper backed away, continuing to bark.  Someone in one of the adjacent apartments banged on the wall between them, and Elliot turned around, looking for something, anything to take his mind off of the night’s events.  Punching the wall wasn’t going to work if Flipper was gonna get him evicted.

Morphine.  He needed morphine. 

No, he needed a fucking miracle, but morphine would be the next best thing.  Get so high that he could forget, then sleep through the next sixty years of his life.

Elliot yanked open the nearest kitchen drawer and began to rifle through it, throwing out all the junk before repeating the process with the next one.  If it wasn’t something he could get high on, well, Elliot didn’t care where it ended up.

Flipper retreated to the other room, whining.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Elliot knew that he was scaring Flipper with his erratic behavior, but Flipper couldn’t comprehend the soul-crushing guilt and grief that comes when you know you’re responsible for someone else's death.  

Elliot worked through all the drawers, pulling out anything that might be able to get him high and tossing the rest.  It was methodical, it was busywork, it was a task that could keep his mind off of some of the pain.

When Elliot finished, his apartment looked like a tornado had raged through it.  Clothes, computer supplies, kitchen utensils, old receipts and bills, and other random crap covered the floor of every room.  Flipper had retreated to the eye of the hurricane - Elliot’s bed, and about the only thing he hadn’t torn through in his haste for a high.

Elliot’s options stood lined up like soldiers on the counter.  Most of them were expired.  They were all the drugs he’d been prescribed over the years for his mental illness - antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers.  None of them had ever been touched.   There was no morphine left anywhere in his apartment, nor any other opiate.  

“That’s not a good idea, kid,” came Mr. Robot’s voice from somewhere behind him.  How he got in, Elliot had no clue.  It seemed like everyone had a key to his house these days.  “They’re not going to be able to help you anyway.”

Elliot’s confusion turned to irritation.  “Get out of my apartment.”

“You might want to clean some of this up.  Wouldn’t want your dog to start chewing on anything.” Mr. Robot continued as if Elliot hadn’t spoken.  He grabbed some loose wires and a pack of cigarettes off of the ground and tossed them on the table.  

Elliot wasn’t listening.  He dry-swallowed a handful of random pills and stared at his hands on the table.

He didn’t need this right now.

“I told you to leave,” he said, sounding tired.

Mr. Robot shook his head.  “You gotta put this behind you at some point, Elliot.  We have a revolution to focus on.  Every day, we get closer to taking down Evil Corp.”

Elliot glared at him.  He couldn’t find the words to ask Mr. Robot how he’s supposed to forget the dried blood staining the upholstery and the crushing moment when he realized Shayla wasn't going to open her eyes ever again.

“Fuck you,” he finally said.

Mr. Robot shrugged and left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

Elliot decided that the mess could wait, sat down on the couch, and tried to think about nothing at all.  Something he’d thrown there slips between the cushions.

Eventually, Elliot falls into a haunted sleep.

And Shayla’s body has been engraved onto his memory.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write something, so this is what my brain produced.  
> (I'm so crazy into Mr. Robot right now it's not even funny)  
> I hope you enjoyed it.  
> Concrit and kudos are always welcome. :)


End file.
